


Doctor Robot

by Schgain



Category: Portal
Genre: Maybe - Freeform, Medication, Poetry, Sad, Schizophrenia, Stream of Consciousness, headmates, multiple systems, poor doug, pre-fall aperture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:20:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doug's known about his headmate for years and all they've done. A new voice joins the cacaphony of his usual madness, his greatest companion, and his own fleeting words. </p>
<p>It's written like poetry, but really Doug thinks like that anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Robot

Doug Rattmann did not like the new project. 

It whirred and screamed  
Steam spat out with overheating metal   
A voice in the back of his head  
And three in the front  
Did you take your medicine today?   
Did you take your medicine today?  
Did you take your medicine today?  
Yes, he lies.   
The voice in his right brain   
pink glowing typewriter font  
Doesn’t appreciate the lie  
Despite it lengthening their existence. 

He reports the new voice to Phil.  
She can’t talk yet, Doug.   
Don’t be stupid.   
Doug sees a person   
made of shadows and hard light  
in the corner of his vision  
taking a red wrench to Phil’s temple.  
When he opens his eyes,  
Phil is standing over him.   
There’s no blood.  
Did you take your medicine today?  
Doug lies again.   
Phil helps him up,   
sits him on a pink and grey cube.   
Take a break, he says.  
Doug recites those three words   
Over and over  
for an hour  
Until he’s yelled at to stop. 

The Voice says something snarky from the loudspeaker.  
I can see you.   
I know all about you.  
Doug throws things at the cameras near his office  
and finds a hidey-hole in the wall  
And paints away his cares.  
The good voice, the benevolent voice,   
chases off the shadows and the mold   
That grow on the hem of his labcoat   
That coat his lapels  
The algae that coats his eyes and hair  
his Companion pushes them away with stern snark  
And something kind. 

Doug goes to Mr. Johnson about the voice.   
She talks.   
Mr. Johnson coughs.   
What’s left of him, really.  
She can’t talk. Not yet.   
Doug catches him   
looking at Caroline.   
At the baby.   
Not yet, Doug repeats  
all the way to his office  
Until Phil comes in and tells him  
Shut the hell up.

I can see you, I can see you.   
I know what you’re doing. You think I’m not real.   
Shut up, Doug says.   
The voice, shrill and low and sultry   
and digitized poisoned tea  
chuckles.  
You’re not real, Doug thinks,   
and wishes  
his Companion would say something.  
Real enough, she replies.   
They’re going to try to force her into me.   
I don’t want that any more than you do, Doud counters.  
She doesn’t respond. 

Oh, you like dickens, she says   
after days of silence.   
An agoraphobic manic child   
who writes poetry on any surface they can  
Screaming to the night and the wind  
You really are nobody.  
Shut up, says Doug again, for the fourth time. 

Caroline died today.  
Doug tried to pull her  
out of the chassis  
Screaming slurs   
The shadows and the mold and the glow   
Disemboweled the scientists and whispered inadequacies.  
When Doug finds himself  
There is green in the air   
People are choking  
And a horrible voice   
Hers and Not Hers  
is screaming.


End file.
